Story Game: Plot Structure and Finding The Wow

(I'm working on a central directory page for the Story Game, until then, you can review the Situation Game from Fall via the last post: Let's Play! which has an index of posts up to to that point.)

Creating the Situation Game was easy.  I'm stumbling as I try to figure out how to deal with the Plot Game.  And I think it's partly because I know so much about plot theory -- the dozens of theories of story structure, etc. -- that it's hard to get a handle on where you spin the wheel.  Every story has an Inciting Incident in the first act.  And at the end of the first act the character commits to the quest.
There is no way to do a "wheel of inciting incidents" or "wheel of character commitment."  They are things that happen, but not kinds of things that happen.  And they really have to adhere to your situation.

So, even though plot theory is a part of the game, the actual game itself has got to get its hooks in a completely different kind of theory.  You've got to drill down into genre, archetypes and a little something that Hollywood calls a "Wow."

So I'm going to tell you about one more plot structure theory.  A very simple one.  A very very simple one:

Action Movie Structure: put in a WOW every seven minutes.

That's it.  Sometimes people say a Wow goes in every ten minutes or every five minutes.  Sometimes it's three little wows and then every half hour you have one big WOW. intil the end, which is all Big Wows.But the overall theory is pretty much, keep hitting the audience with Wows.

And we've seen those action movies.  I call that genre "Movies In Which Things Blow Up For Absolutely No Reason Whatsoever."  I also call them "Friday Movies," because they are a great thing to watch on a Friday night after a very tough week at work.

But the concept is not just limited to those kinds of movies.  Comedies, for instance, often use this same concept.  Keep the jokes coming, and if one fails, well, the audience will laugh at the next.  The theory behind this is that you should never bore the audience. It's related to Raymond Chandler's advice to bring in a man with a gun whenever the story flags.

Wow Isn't Just About Big Explosions

There are good stupid action movies and bad stupid action movies.  The bad ones are where it's just noise and flash and there is no actual Wow invovled.  There is more to a Wow than just making something big and loud, and if we're going to take this concept outside of the stupid action movie genre, we have to understand what a Wow is.

A Wow has to be satisfying.  This may involve paying off on something we expect, but usually it pays off unexpectedly or ironically.

Star Wars (the original Episode IV) starts with a classic Wow: a space ship racing though space, blasters firing. We think we're seeing a pretty big space ship...

But then from just above the camera (as if it is coming from behind the audience) we see the bigger ship that's chasing it.  That is, we see the front of it enter the screen.  Oh, yeah, we think, that's bigger.  But then it keeps coming.  We haven't seen the end of it yet.  Oh, that's just the front bumper!  It's still coming, and coming.  OMG, it's really really big!  The ship just goes on and on and on.

If you've never seen this on the big screen you have no idea what it was like back in 1977 when theater screens were enormous. That scene would actually make you hunker down in your seat.

That's a wow.

A similar Wow with a different effect is when the Tyrannosaurus Rex is chasing the jeep in Jurassic Park and you can see in the rear view mirror 'Objects in mirror are larger than they appear."  This one works because it's surprisingly understated and ironic.  Same with Jaws when the shark flashes out of the water to be properly seen for the first time.  Only Roy Scheider sees it.  He's scared stiff (as we are) and says "We're gonna need a bigger boat. " (Spielberg was the master of the Wow, especially the ironic wow -- which contrasts something shocking or impressive with an understated comment.

Wows are about the audience's emotional response.  Which means a lot of the time they are archetypes or cliches.  The audience wants to experience it again and again... except that it doesn't always work so well when it's not unexpected.  Then the creator has to work at it.

For instance, dropping a luxury car out of an airplane was a Wow the first time it happened, but thereafter it was a Ho Hum.  It's no longer a surprise, and the irony isn't enough to make it fly.  But that leads me to an example of another kind of Wow, the Payoff Wow.

The Payoff Wow

There's a great "Stupid Action Movie" called Con Air.  I sometimes think the premise of that movie is "What if everyone in the universe, including God, had their IQ docked by about 25 percent?"  This is a movie which didn't try to do anything new, they just worked really hard to put a little extra something into every cliche to turn it back into a Wow.  They didn't always succeed, but like a fast-paced comedy, they keep coming at you so fast that if one thing doesn't work, the next thing probably will.

They used the old "luxury car drops from the sky" routine, and they turned it into a Wow by giving the audience a relationship with the car.  It belongs to a character you really hate, the the more you know him the more you hate him.  The car is a symbol of what you hate about the character, so you hate the car too.  The car almost has it's own subplot, and they build multiple Wows into it. At some point the car gets to fly through the air.  Wow.  Then when that car falls out of the sky... it falls at the feet of the owner.  The guy we hate.

And that's a big Wow.  Because it's a payoff.  It's like a punchline of a joke.  We are rewarded for patience.

Even Art House Movies Have Wows

An intellectual movie will Wow it's audience with moments of insight.  These will also involve irony or unexpected turns or payoffs.  They also have their equivalent of the big loud explosions: beautiful imagery in a movie, or incredible poetic language in a book.

There is a famous scene in the middle of The Third Man, when Joseph Cotton is walking home in the dark and empty streets of Vienna.  He thinks his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) died before he even arrived in Vienna. (At this point in the movie, we haven't even seen a picture of Harry.)  And he knows that he's under surveillance by cops and crooks.  He's drunk and pissed off so when he sees someone concealed in the shadow of a doorway, he taunts the guy. Calls for him to come out and show himself.  The guy doesn't come out, but then someone opens a window and casts a light into the shadow.... it's Harry.



That's a Wow, too. It's surprising and ironic, and what a classic look on Orson Welles' face!

The Third Man is chock full of "art movie" Wows (gorgeous cinematography, and careful counter-intuitive pacing, spritely zither music in a thriller plot). You could say it's the Arthouse equivalent of Con Air: You are barraged with Wow moments.

A wow can be a joke or a speech or a kiss, or surprise.  But it can also be something expected.  It can be the thing that the audience hopes for and anticipates with glee.  When Columbo turns around and says "Oh, there's just one more thing..."  That's a Wow for the audience waiting for it.  In a slapstick comedy, when there's a pie on the mantelpiece, you just know the movie ain't over until it is thrown.

A Wow, then, is basically any moment or event that gives the audience satisfaction.  In every kind of book or movie or poem or play, the Wow is what the audience is watching or reading or listening for.  That's why so many cliches are also Wows, because anything good is going to get used over and over again.

Part of what defines a genre is what kind of Wow the audience is expecting.  And because they've seen it all before, one of the skills of the master of any genre is to be clever and interesting with those expected Wows.  The masters are those who find a way to make them unexpected.

Wows and The Story Game

I'm thinking that the Plotting Game is going to have to revolve around Wows.  Yes, we'll start with plot theory, but to create a form for a plotting game, we're going to have to drill down from that into Wow territory.

So we're going to take a look at each act in a four-act structure and think about how it applies to genre, and then create Wheels of Wow for each item we identify.

So next week, I think we can finally get to Act 1.

See you in the funny papers.

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Wed ROW80 Update

This part of the week had gone somewhat better.  However, meeting a low goal shouldn't be listed under "better."  Still got tiring "stuff" going on.  I did manage to write and do some art too. With the writing, I was mostly pushing and shoving at the romance.

However, the feral cat who disappeared during the killer cold spell has returned. He is in good health and no hungrier than usual.  We think he does have someplace else to go for warmth, even if he does seem to prefer our chow.  Col. Scruffy appears to have used up more than nine lives, but he keeps chugging.

My A Round of words in 80 Days update:

The goals for the first quarter of 2014 are to write on the WIP for at least Four 10-minute writing sprints/bouts/sessions.  That makes for about 800-1200 words.  I should be doing at least twice that much, but I've got a lot of other things on my plate. (Aside from weather.)

Sunday, Day 7 - 4 sessions. I don't remember what.

Monday, Day 8 - 4 sessions. Plus two new covers at Self-Pub Book Covers.  The one you see here came to me in a flash as I sat down for the evening.  Good thing I had three of my sessions done for the day already.

Tuesday, Day 9 - 3 sessions.  I hope to do one more tonight, but I am so sleepy, I don't think it will happen.  Also, I did another cover, but I'm not putting it up yet, because it's a non-fiction cover, and I want to do more dramatic fiction covers first.

We should be getting some snow by morning.  Supposedly not more than a few inches.  I, however, am too sleepy to think about it.  (I suspect this might be one of those vestigal migraines.)

I currently have no idea whether I'll make the Friday Game Post or not. You guys should start a pool....

See you in the funny papers.

Sunday Update

This was a very disappointing half week.  The story was going gang busters, but stuff happened.

The one thing I did do was fill in a lot of plot holes (and find some inconsistencies I have to deal with).  This is intentionally a kind of throwaway ripping yarn, and so I don't mind a certain amount of dumb plotting... but it has to make sense on some level.

But I didn't expect the anonymous thug to show his face and make such a polite threat to the heroine. I also didn't expect the $50,000.  I can only say, wow, that puts an interesting complexion on things.


As for my A Round of words in 80 Days update:

The goals for the first quarter of 2014 are to write on the WIP for at least Four 10-minute writing sprints/bouts/sessions.  That makes for about 800-1200 words.  I should be doing at least twice that much, but I've got a lot of other things on my plate. (Aside from weather.)

Wednesday, Day 3: 4 bouts, for about 1200 words.  I wanted to do a session earlier in the day, but ended up replotting some things.

Thursday, Day 4: Day lost to personal stuff.

Friday, Day 5: Day lost because I was an idiot.  After being trapped in the house for so long, I decided that I'd try to get back to my regular routine and go out to MacDonalds to type some blog posts early on.  I have now discovered the source of my terrible shoulder RSI.  It appears to be that danged tiny keyboard on the netbook I use when I'm out of the house, combined with the high restaurant table.  (All those days in the house, no trouble. One session out of the house, OUCH!)

Saturday, Day 6: 2 bouts, for about 500 words. Rested shoulder, tried out some other portable keyboards.  (For home: Found my new ergonomic keyboard xmas pleasant is Da Bomb! I'll talk about it later.  When I can type long enough to write about it.)

I've learned my lesson and I'm not going to predict anything for this week.  In my pain-inducing session on Friday, I did get some nice rough drafting done on some posts about plot. However, they aren't ready to post yet, so what will get posted on Friday will depend on the shoulder.

See you in the funny papers.

My Apologies - No Story Game Post

Today was consumed by utterly exhausting personal stuff.

It's been going on for a while, and between it and the Polar Vortex, I haven't even had a chance to look at my notes on the Story Game plot stuff.  I thought I would just pull it together tonight, but things blew up in my face even before getting out of bed this morning.

I am, however, able to get out of my house now.  The car has returned to life. I have hopes that tomorrow will see a return to something near normal.

I might just fall asleep right now, or I might get a little writing done, but I'm not going to get any blogging done.

See you in the funny papers.

Wed Update - Winter Edition

Yeah, I know, I said I was going to do an Artisan Writers post on predictions for 2014, but shoveling snow wore me out, and I couldn't get interested in that post.  So maybe next week I'll do something on the interesting parts.

I reached my goals, mostly, but I should be doing better.  However, weather is time consuming.  (Just putting on four or five layers of clothing makes so many minor tasks take way way longer than usual.) Yes, the year of the Snake is lashing us with a pretty fierce ending.

The picture here is looking out my back door about halfway through the storm -- 9-10 inches of snow. (The posts are 4x4.)

Also, though this storm was nowhere NEAR the intensity of the great storms of 1967 and 1978 (39" and 33" inches storm totals), Michigan State University did close down for a day and a half -- and that qualifies this year's storm as a certified Snowpocalypse.

And yes, we are still snowed in.  The car is dead of hypothermia, and we don't wish to join it.  Tomorrow, as you read this, we will attempt to dig ourselves the rest of the way out.  We are out of butter and Cheerios.

As for my A Round of words in 80 Days update:

The goals for the first quarter of 2014 are to write on the WIP for at least Four 10-minute writing sprints/bouts/sessions.  That makes for about 800-1200 words.  I should be doing at least twice that much, but I've got a lot of other things on my plate. (Aside from weather.)

Sunday Day 0 - 2 sessions, managed before I realized that I was too tired out from shoveling snow to stay awake.  Stayed awake anyway and drew some very boring pictures.

Monday Day 1 - 4 sessions, plus some new brainstorming, and a new cover for Self-pub Book Covers (non-fiction this time.)  All of today's words were from Reef's point of view. I think that this will work out better and faster if I do switch back and forth from heroine to hero. This would allow me to get information to the audience more easily for one.

Also -- I got to bring Chef more directly into it.  He was deeply concerned that the heroine did not eat her pain au chocolat.  He is my favorite character, and I'm wondering if he has a certain detective quality, and if I should decide this story needs a cavalry... maybe Chef should show up with a 9" boning knife.

Tuesday Day 2 - 4.5 sessions.  (I was in the middle of a session when I came to the end of a scene and realized that I needed to  stop and replot some things.  Is Reef going to find anything if he goes to check on Angela's apartment? If not, it's not a scene, just a summary.  If he finds something, is it just a puzzling clue or is it a whole scene -- like a chase through an alley or something?)

(Other participants reporting in on the Linky page here: ROW80 First Midweek Checkin)

A Little About The Story

In Flight could end up a novel rather than a novella.  It still feels like a movie.  I thought this was going to be just from the heroine's point of view, but the guys have horned their way in.

 I like Reef and Chef as classic helper/impact characters. They're just background characters at the heroine's place of work. (Well, Reef is the leading man -- he rolled up as "authority figure; boss" in The Game.)  So....

I'm going to tell you about the story from the wrong point of view:

Chef is the boss of a catering company owned by a hotel chain.  Reef is the suit from corporate who is supposedly running the place, but he's really just a useless excess manager who is trotted out to fire people when they displease Chef. Reef wants to open a detective agency one day.  (And by the end of the story, I think Chef will consider adding detection to the menu of services offered by the catering company.)

Into this milieu comes Angela, an apparently shy and secretive young woman hired as clerk and menu designer, who proves indispensable with her creative and willing hard work.  But a soon as Chef decides to promote her to a more responsible position... Angela's past catches up with her, and she flees without explanation, leaving her pain au chocolat untouched.

Chef is concerned.

He sends Reef after her, equipped with eclairs.

The actual story -- and pitch -- will be from Angela's point of view.  But the above just seemed like fun (and it is Reef's point of view I'm working on right now).

In the meantime I'm mad at Chef, because this story is beginning to sound like a whacky Camille LaGuire adventure, and less like a classic Woman-in-Jeopardy Romantic Suspense.

Anyway, on Friday we'll get on with the Story Game - Plotting, and talk about the first act of a four-act story.

See you in the funny papers.

Update - Art and Flash Fiction and ROW80

Oh!  The next ROW80 starts Monday.  (ROW80 = A Round of Words in 80 Days. A quarterly, on going writing challenge/dare.) And when I do ROW80, I like to start it a day early, so it ends in time to actually report on the last check-in day.

So I guess that will be today.

The Goals will be my general goals for the year as mentioned on New Years:  Four 10-minute writing sprints minimum every day.  This is a very low goal -- only accounting for about 1000 words -- but I only count work on the "current project."  I have a lot of other projects on my plate, so it's challenging enough.

The current project right now is In Flight -- a romantic suspense novella generated by The Story Game.  (The cover you see here is still in progress, and the pen name is not set in stone yet either.)

Flash Fiction

One of the distractions is that the folks on Kboards are putting together a huge group project involving Flash Fiction.  I'm not going to say much other than that it's getting my muses all stirred up and I'm going to use it to ramp up my short fiction efforts.  I feel like writing a bunch of flash and microfiction stories.

Some time, way off in the future, I may bring in some smaller story games -- more like prompts -- for generating quick short fiction ideas.  I'll probably post a few when I get done with Plot on the Friday Story Game posts.

Cover Work

The other big distraction is that I am getting more cover work, especially from Self-Pub Book Covers. (You can see my portfolio page here.  It doesn't show covers which have already sold, though.)  Nothing like a little cash to inspire you to concentrate on something you find fun.

And although I realize I should be doing more nonfiction covers (non-fiction writers -- especially business writers -- are more likely to want a full paper cover), I keep getting inspired to with these dramatic fiction cover ideas.

The images you see here I just did tonight.  They haven't been approved yet. (Though they might be by the time you see it.)

With these graphic silhouettes and abstract designs, I could probably do them faster in Illustrator (at least some of them -- not the more organic shapes like people), but I enjoy doing these in Photoshop so much I keep putting it off.

And I want to do more drawing, sketching and painting styles, and that I need to do in Photoshop or Painter.

In the meantime....

Coming up on the Blog

Everybody's posting predictions for publishing in 2014.  So I'll post a little something in the Artisan Writer column on Monday -- not so much a prediction as mentioning trends I see and reacting to the predictions of others.  (In particular Joe Konrath and Bob Mayer.)

Wednesday, my ROW80 update

Friday, we'll talk about ACT 1 and seek out the fun and cool stuff that might go there, that could inspire more of the Story Game.

See you in the funny papers.

Story Game - The Psychology of Plot

Welcome back to The Story Game!

This fall we created The Situation Game (which focuses on everything in place before the story starts -- characters, motivations, conflicts).  I have a few people testing it, and it's shaping up nicely, but there are a few tweaks I'll need to do.

(The last post for the Situation Game -- "Let's Play" -- starts with an index to all posts in that series.)

This Winter we're going to focus on plot.

And even though the game itself focuses on formulaic fiction, the goal is to understand the mechanics that apply to all kinds of fiction. (Or at least more kinds of fiction.)

So though I will, as usual, bring in ideas and examples from literature and movies and comic strips and any storytelling medium, the focus of the game right now is still the "Woman in Jeopardy" Romantic Suspense Story.

(However, I myself will be pushing over into other mystery genres as much as possible soon.)

Plot As Game

When you think of turning story telling into a game, plotting certainly seems to be the most natural part to use.  Especially when you're talking about pulp fiction formulas.  Part of the inspiration for this game was Erle Stanley Gardner's plot wheels.

Oddly, I found when I started this phase of the game, the pieces of this part of the game were just not falling into place.  Perhaps it's because I have a lovely image in my mind as to what a story game should look like:

The image involves a wonderful three-dimensional game board representing the journey of the protagonist through an unknown landscape, with cards and dice rolls and spins of the wheel springing surprises on him as he goes.

That's attractive, because it mimicks the experience of reading formula fiction.  You sorta know where it's going, but the details and twists and turns are a surprise when they happen.  And, if you anticipate those twists and turns too much you get bored.

And I think that's why this magic game board is attractive to me: writers know what's going to happen.  Sure, ideas come at you by surprise sometimes, but the actual process of writing is slow enough that most of the time, you're ahead of any surprises, and far ahead of even the most astute reader.   You have to set the twists and turns up.

Being a writer can be like being an actor.

An actor has to know the play and rehearse his actions long before he presents his art to the audience -- and so he has to find ways to keep it fresh for himself, to keep some sense of spontaneity going.  Of course, live performances have one thing that keeps everything fresh: accidents happen.  Another actor misses a beat, or delivers a line differently, and you have to adapt for that.  Noises in the audience, a missing prop.  All of this keeps live drama from being boring.  Sometimes actors even introduce challenges intentionally -- surprising (an annoying) their fellow actors with unrehearsed twists and turns.

That's what Improv is.  Making it up as you go along, playing with the cards you're dealt (and having no script to fall back on).

For a lot of plotting games out there, that's the purpose of using a random choice generator.  It creates an improvisational freshness.  You never know what's going to happen next, and a choice could throw you off your plans, so you are, in essense, writing on the edge.

It's sort of like writing a round-robin story by yourself.

(You know what a round robin story is, don't you?  One person writes a page or a chapter and hands it off to the next person, who writes the next bit.  Each person taking an equal part, locked into what went before and having to come up with the next bit based on it.)

But there is a problem with this kind of beat-by-beat improvisation, though.  Most round robin stories start off strong, but they quickly go down hill and become boring and dissatisfying.  This is because the parts are equal and there is no opportunity to set up anything. There is never a real arc -- just leaping back and forth of the story line.

The Pulp Plot Formula

If you just look at the standard pulp plot formula, as the Lester Dent formula for pulp short stories, or my own Maverick formula, you see something similar going on.  These descriptions of plot may be useful to seeing structure -- but the fact is they are very straight line descriptions.  Basically, the same thing happens in each act.. only more so.  The hero gets in trouble, then he gets in worse trouble, then in the worst trouble possible, and then gets out of it.

That doesn't really get into what a good plot does.  Even in the most formulaic plot, the pulp hero doesn't just get himself into deeper and deeper trouble at random.  The trouble builds, on piece on another.  Each action affects what happens next.  And more important, each action reveals more information, which changes the perspective of the audience -- what the audience thinks. (This was partly touched on by the Maverick formula -- as Maverick also has his mind changed with each act).

If the story is to feel satisfying, it has to be a psychological unit.  It must lead the character -- and the audience -- through a psychological cycle.


The Psychology of a Story

Stories exist to play "what if?"  The point is to put us through a virtual crisis.  Or maybe I should call it a "Virtual Change in Conditions" -- because the crisis could be a happy one or a terrifying one.  Although all humans react differently to different changes and crises, there is a common pattern that happens inside our heads.  Stories reflect that.

I was thinking about it last fall, and I realized that the standard plot formula -- whether it's the 7-Act Movie-of-the-Week structure I talked about it last summer, or the 4-act structures of Lester Dent and Maverick, or the classic Hollywood 3-Act structure -- all have mild association with Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief.

I don't think this makes a good formula for your writing (well, it might) but it does help us see the psychological progression of a story.  We may rational purposes of all kinds for any particular story, but this is about the irrational side of us -- that psychological pattern that needs to be gone through to feel satisfied.


Act 1 - Denial  (The Set Up - What It's Like When Everything's Fine)

Every story starts with set up.  The character and audience believes the world is a certain way.  The story often lets the audience know that something is wrong before the character, but not always.  Either way, there is something wrong, something that the character doesn't realize he has to react to.  Then the inciting incident happens, and the character is forced to recognize it and react to it.

Act 2 - Bargaining (Treating the Problem Rationally, Because Everything is Still Fine)

Usually this is the second half of Act 1.  The character first reacts by thinking they can take ordinary action that fits into their worldview (that is the "denial" worldview that everything really is, basically, fine).  They run around trying to do things the right or habital way.  Aliens attack their house, they try to call the cops, or run away or hide or do those things we plan to do in a crisis.

In other words, they feel the problem is a reasonable one and you can take normal, reasonable actions to "bargain" it away.  But they find they are wrong, and that they must react more strongly than they ever thought.  And that makes them more determined to deal with this problem than ever.

Act 3 - Anger (Expending Energy, Because Things Are Not Fine)

At first glance this section (which Hollywood would refer to as the first half of the second act) would seem like it isn't about anger.  But think about what anger is: a release of stress and energy.  And what triggers anger? Frustration.  When you try to deal with something reasonably, and that doesn't work you get frustrated, and that pushes you to do things you wouldn't have thought to do otherwise.  And maybe that means Hulk Smash!, or maybe that means you set aside your ordinary tasks and go after the problem.  This is the point when the kids screwing around in the basement actually did make Mom come down there and settle it.

So though this equates to the anger part, this is also the most energectic and often fun part of the story.  This is where the characters go all out for something. At least until they crash.

Act 4 - Depression (Failure, Desperation and Truth)

Merely going after the problem with more energy and commitment failed.  You might have achieved some joyously exuberant triumph, but it's a an empty success.  The Thing That Is Not Fine is still there.  And maybe it's not only stronger than you though, it's worse than you thought.  The stakes are higher than you thought... and yuou're not up to it.  You expended all that energy for nothing. You may have even made things worse.  You feel weak, inadequate, and you don't know what to do.

But that's what it takes to give up on denial.  You have to hit bottom before you can see the truth.  

This is the part of the story where all seems lost, and many secrets are revealed -- at least one of which is significant enough to give you some kind of renewed hope.  You don't know if you're strong enough or smart enough, but at last you understand what is going on.

Act 5 - Acceptance (Facing Reality and Conquering It)

When you see and understand the truth, you are at last able to go after the problem in a realistic way that has hope of success.  And because you were wrong about the problem before, this section isn't just about overcoming the biggest problem, it's about surviving and becoming a new person, a wiser person.

This Is Not a Plot Formula

Don't take the psychological points above too seriously in terms of what your character faces or how he or she reacts to it.  It's really about emotional energy -- it's a way of seeing what emotions dig into the "lizard brain" of your audience as the story progresses.  It's what the brain expects to feel:

The opening is logical, then next section high energy, the next low energy, and finally satisfaction and wisdom. (And because this is about emotions, "wisdom" can mean completely dumb things like blowing up the bad guys.)


What does this have to do with The Story Game, then?

Well, first it explains why creating wheels of problems which act like beads on a string won't create a satisfying story.  The difficulties that assail the character from plot point to plot point can't be equal in this kind of story. (There are other structures that don't work like this, or which only deal with part of it -- I'll be talking about some of those later -- probably not within the Friday Story Game posts, but maybe on a Tuesday -- just going into different kinds of story theory.)

What I'm thinking is that the way to approach this part of the game may be to peel it back in layers, or to take it in "modules." We're going to use the above theory, as well as the MoW theory I mentioned last summer as a kind of lens, as we look at our Romantic Suspense genre plot (as well as other kinds of stories) act-by-act in a four act structure.

Next week we'll talk about Act One - the Set Up. Which is a very busy act in terms of things you have to do with it.  You've got to introduce everything, sew the seeds of your ending, "Save the Cat" (and maybe "Kill the Puppy" for you villain), as well as have your hero and heroine "Meet Cute." (Though I think they might also "Meet Suspicious" in a romantic suspense story.)

Before that, we'll have a Sunday Update, and on Monday I'll have an Artisan Writer thoughts on the upcoming year in publishing.

See you in the funny papers.

Happy New Year, and Upcoming Plans

My Plans for This Year

First, I am going by the Chinese calendar this year.  2013 was the Year of the Snake -- a wriggly, trickster of a year.  And the Year of the Snake is not over until January 31.

January of this year is a liminal zone for me.  It's all about prepparing for the next phase of my life/career -- to begin with the Year of the Fire Horse on January 31.

Those preparations started last summer, really.  I don't really want to look back any further than that: I glanced at my journal, and I just do not want to revisit last spring.  Last spring was a nightmare.  And then summer was just too hot to get work done.

However, last summer I got the chance to look at my own patterns and cycles and start getting the ball rolling.   By fall I set myself on a couple of paths that will continue into next year:

Chasing Enthusiasm

My "Chasing Enthusiasm" project has worked pretty well, but as predicted, it doesn't work well in the area of getting to the finish line.

(Short review: In looking over all my work, I discovered that self-discipline accounted for very very little of my productivity over my lifetime.  The vast majority of my work was accomplished when I was being flightly and undisciplined.  So I decided to be flighy and undisciplined for the rest of the year.)

The two big successes of the Enthusiasm Project were:  1.)  Art work - I'm starting to make some cash at covers that I do spontaneously, for instance - and 2.) The Story Game, which may or may not become a salable project in itself, but it is piling up some interesting stories to be written. (More on that below.)

I am going to continue with a modified version of Chasing Enthusiasm for a while, but I'm going to temper it by putting a game-like goal into my day.  I will likely rejoin ROW80 - which means update posts on Wednesdays and Sundays again -- and the goal will be measured in 10 minute writing sprints.

Four 10-minute writing bouts a day, no matter what else I'm doing.  Ten minute bouts or challenges are fun to do, like an exercise or game.  And I expect to do more than four any days that I don't have too much else on my plate.

The Story Game Stories

My original purpose for The Story Game, for those who haven't been following closely, was to create consistent "pulp" stories and write them quickly.  However, it was a very hot summer, and I found the game part more interesting than the writing part.  This fall, however, when it cooled off and I got serious about the game, I found myself getting serious about the stories too.  I have  returned to my original plan:

I will be writing these under a pen name -- probably Vera Avrila or something similar. (I like the typographical possiblities of As and Vs.)  I am doing this not because the stories will be so terribly different than what I write under my own name, but rather because, unlike my regular, they will be consistent in terms of genre, tone and length.

Another reason I want to write them under a pen name is because I want to experiment with a pricing structure that will be different from the books under my own name.

I don't know if this will be a money-making enterprise.  I considered writing popular genres (such as smut).  I even created an anoymous publisher entity for it, just in case it worked out... but it didn't work out.  Luckily, I was smart enough to create an identity that was flexible.  The branding was focused on short and romantic. Therefore I could use it for romantic suspsense novellas. (However, I'm not going to unveil it until I decide for certain.)

Another reason it might not be a great money-making enterprise: I will be bucking the trend toward more and more erotic content.  While my books will not be "sweet," they will meet the standards of The Production Code for the most part.  They will involve adult concepts, and may involve limited use of adult language, but for the most part if you didn't see it in a Hollywood pot-boiler such as Mildred Pierce, you're not likely to see it in my Vera Avrila books.

We'll see how that swings with the kids today.

I've got three books in development on that, and I'm not going to publish any of them until all three are fully drafted.  Then I'll publish them a month apart.  I hope to start in March.

The Serial -- Plink, Alex and The Awarshi Contingent

The Perils of Plink have been postponed again mainly because the world is developing on me and I have some bigger plans.  Plink may even have to wait until I get some other stories in the series done.  That particular muse has a lot to handle, so I'm letting her do it however she wants.  She wants me to do the slower stories -- the more children's story type stores -- first.  We'll see. (More about that in the blog.  There are some interesting literary/creative subjects in there.)

Mick and Casey

You may or may not see some Mick and Casey shorts come up soon -- but I have decided to go back to submitting them to commercial magazines before self-publishing them.  So I can't predict when you'll next see some stories from them.  Sometime this year, but probably not until later.

Starling and Marquette (i.e. "The Man Who....")

This is actually the series that is burning to get out.  The books, however, have complications that make it a slow process.  I think, however, that The Story Game is giving me some tools to move this forward better and faster.  I hope to move this series along faster once I get the Game Stories out of the way.

Non-fiction and The Game Itself

I'd like to have the Situation Game tested and tweaked to sell as an ebook and workbook sometime around summer.  I don't know if the "plot game" section will be a part of this, or if I'll sell them as smaller modular "ebooklets."  Depends on what develops.

Miscellaneous Short Fiction

I have an urge to return to writing short fiction and submitting it to magazines as well as self-publishing.  The Ride to Save King had some interesting things happening in the stats when it went free.  It did much better than my other free books.  I wonder about a budding children's market -- especially for chapter books and narrative shorts.  I used to write children's stories mainly.  It might be time to start again.

I also want to do more mystery short fiction again.

Summer of Paper

Last year the heat wiped me out of creative work.  So this year, I am planning for that. I will be doing layout for paper copies of all of my books this summer, for release in late summer and early fall. 

I should also mention that things are going well on the cover art front.  I'm making a nice bit of extra cash and enjoying what I do.


But Out of All Of That...My Goals.

For now, those four 10-minute writing sprints a day will focus on this:

*A Mick and Casey Christmas story to be submitted to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine by the end of January.  (Six-gun Santa)

*Three Game Stories (In Flight; Hours of Need; Covet Thy Neighbor) to be at least drafted by the end of March.

I think I can actually do much better, because the sprints are fun and I can do 8-10 in an evening if I watch out for RSIs.

On Friday, we'll start in talking about plot and how we can work that into The Story Game.  And on Monday I may take an "Artisan Writers" look at all the predictions for next year in Indie Publishing.

See you in the funny papers.

We Three Cats - A Cat-mas Carol

Long ago I wrote songs for my cats' website. I haven't done it in quite a while, but this is one of the more popular tunes.

At the time I had three Siamese cats (you know "cats of Orient"?) whom I nicknamed "The Good, The Bad and The Fluffy." They had a three-way pecking order going, but they all knew how to cooperate at Christmas....


We Three Cats
(sung to the tune of "We Three Kings")

We three cats of Orient do
help our mom wrap presents for you.
Paper crinkles oh so beautifully.
Give us some stuff to chew.

Ohhhh OHHHHHHHH,
Sit on paper, sit on bows.
Get the tape stuck on your nose.
Wrap your tail all up in ribbons.
Don't let scissors cut your toes.

We three cats just love to explore
right where mommy's doing her chores.
Lay right there and shred the paper.
Knock presents on the floor.

Ohhhh OHHHHHHHH,
Sit on paper, sit on bows.
Get the tape stuck on your nose.
Wrap your tail all up in ribbons.
Don't let scissors cut your toes.

We three cats shut out of the room,
howling like we're meeting our doom.
Mommy scorns our help, what's wrong with her?
Guess we'll just sit and fume.

Ohhhh OHHHHHHHH,
Sit on paper, sit on bows.
Get the tape stuck on your nose.
Wrap your tail all up in ribbons.
Don't let scissors cut your toes.

Happy holidays, everyone.  May your catnip be strong, and your door latches weak, and may you have plenty of time to play in the cardboard boxes before they get recycled....

* This silliness was brought to you by...*

You can find wonderful organizations like Mid-Michigan Cat Rescue at PetFinders on the web. Don't forget to help the needy pets in this cold holiday season!

See you in the funny papers.

Update and Fun With Pictures at the Library of Congress

My goodness, I guess I'm already in  holiday mode.  I forgot my update.

Things have been busy chez Camille this week.  The usual kerfuffle in friends and family and cats and traffic and weather.....  But also I've been busy doing some cover work, in particular subcontracting a back cover and spine.  (I enjoy this very much and it brings in cash!)

Plus a month or so ago I was arguing with people who were wrong on the internet. Someone scoffed at this photo posted by @History_Pics and swore that the picture was too high quality to have been photographed in 1922.  I tried to explain to him that photos back then were MUCH higher rez than now, especially when it's a glass negative.  Film negatives never caught up to that quality and digital has only just barely got to that state. (Astronomers were still using glass plates up until ten years or so ago -- because they needed the high-resolution and sensitivity.)

The fellow who was wrong on the internet, though, declared (and I'm paraphrasing): "That picture was never taken in 1922, and too bad neither of us can prove it!"

So I proved it.

(The picture had a Shorpy water mark, and Shropy always names the source of their images.   Library of Congress.  "Taken between 1921 and 1923.")

It took very little time or effort to find it.  Unfortunately, escaping the LOC collections will take a lifetime.  Oh, I love archives.

That particular picture came from the Harris and Ewing Collection, high end art and photojournalism photographers, and the whole collection is on glass negatives -- basically top of the line stuff.  So all the photos are spiffy, and I've been browsing them for a while now.

However, just this week I found what I consider my pot of gold: the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information collection.  Yeah, those pictures taken by photographers hired by government agencies to document life in the U.S. in the 1930s and  1940s.  They're mostly on film, not glass,  and in many cases damaged film.  It looks to me like the original editor used a hole punch on a lot of the negative to indicate which ones not to print.  (Sometimes to really funny effect.)

Oy, vey, it's fun to hang out on this site.  Even with the damaged pix, there are lots of great images for reference drawings. 

Also, it's almost all in the public domain (because they are government photographs), however some rights are still in question because if the people depicted are still alive, they have "life rights" to the image.  You can still used people pictures editorially (i.e. as in this blog post about the LOC collection -- news stories) but not commercially, say, for a book cover or t-shirt.

However, if there is no person in it, there are "no known restrictions." (Here is the link to the Rights and Restrictions for the FSA Collection in general - however, you should check the Rights Advisory for each image, in the "about this item" page.)

Also note that the Library of Congress has a lot of material that ISN'T in the public domain. Always check the Rights Advisory.  Always.

And aside from the art factor.... History!  The collection is just so cool to browse through.  There are photos documenting slum conditions, and also places people are relocated to.

And lots of people just doing stuff.  Like this young lady showing us her bloomers?  That's from the 1930s.  She's in costume, and clearly thinks the costume is quaint. I believe these were taken at a fair in Vermont.  There are lots of images of folks in costume, and this girl appears a couple of times... always flashing her pantaloons at us.  (For shame, young hussy!)

So that is just cool.


In the meantime....

Ideas have been flowing like wine at a Bacchanalia (or like whine in a writer's forum.)  Winter is a very productive time for me, if I don't give myself typing injuries or catch cold.

I am pulling together the updated game materials for those who want to test out the story game.  I hope to send them out Monday or Tuesday.  (Anyone who wants to play around with this early version of the game, email my cat at maudecat at gmail.com with "Game Tester" in the subject line. )

In the meantime, I will post a little holiday fluffery sometime this week, and then not until Jan 3, when we get back to the game and a fuller posting schedule again.

See you in the funny papers.

Story Game - Having Fun, Looking for Game Testers

I have been rolling a story a day since I posted the "Let's Play" post.  As of this writing, that's 21 story situations, including the one I rolled for that post.

I haven't been playing full out and writing stories from them (yet), just rolling numbers, filling out the forms and doing enough brainstorming to test whether I can come up with a viable idea that interests me.

The goal here was to:

• Test the game, see what needs adjusting.  (And nearly all of it does need adjusting.)
• See how much fun I can have with it.  (Which is "lots.")

But the surprise is how well it has been working as a creativity tool.  It's actually working.  For work.

This game has been great in helping me come up with viable, robust ideas that excite me -- and this even though this is not really my main genre.  If I needed to become a pulp writer who turned out a novelette or novella a week, this game certainly does give me the material.  At least half of these stories excite me.  All of them, so far, are something I could write with reasonable interest. (They are books I would be interested in reading, anyway.)

The game really wasn't intended to be that kind of production tool, though, and I have no idea if this flavor of Romantic Suspense is of any commercial value.  But you know, there are two parts to productivity.  One is marketability, but the other is enjoying what you are doing enough to keep doing it.

I still have two big questions:

Will it work for other genres and types of stories?

What I have found so far is that the stories it generates vary.  Some of them really seem more suited to Romantic Comedy (no mystery or suspense) and others seem especially suited to Mystery Suspense with a romantic subplot.

Also, a big part of the Woman in Jeopardy suspsense story has to do with where the plot goes.  And if you choose not to head for a Happily Ever After ending, you could have an outright thriller on your hands. (And sometimes even with an HEA ending.)

So even though I think this Situation/Character Structure part of the game should be changed for other genres and types of story.... I also think that it's easy enough to simply do that in the plotting end.

The biggest problem, though, is that this game really is suited for stand alone stories.  Not for series.  That is, I can't use it to come up with a murder plot for George and Karla or even Mick and Casey.  (At least, not yet.  I've got ideas I'm working on for that....)

This makes it great for short stories, though.  And it also is surprisingly good for coming up with... the first book in a series.  I have learned this the hard way.  As I write In Flight, I find myself thinking "Oh, that would be a fun continuing character.... Oh, and that would work for a series...."  (Like I need yet another series.  I don't think so...)

Will it work for other people?

If other people do as I do and adjust the game to suit their tastes and needs, sure, it could work for them.  But could this be a package?  An actual game or workbook that people could use to have fun, develop skills and develop stories?  I mean, would the game I'm writing work for people who don't want to write their own game?

I honestly don't know yet.  I would like to publish it.  I think it could at least be fun.  In the meantime, I'm still testing.

I would like to find some people who would be interested in playing with it.  I'd send a pdf (and maybe an ebook version) of the updated forms and wheels/lists.  I wouldn't require anybody to do anything in particular with it -- just play with it and let me know what parts are fun or productive, and which parts are frustrating (or which you simply ignore).

If you're interested, email my cat, maudecat at gmail.com, with a header that says Game Tester, and when things are ready, I'll send the materials out.

In the meantime, I will likely post an update on Sunday (the 15th) but then not again until January 3 -- when I'll begin a the Plotting section of the game.

See you in the funny papers.

New Book - A Free Holiday Short Story

I just published a new ebook today -- currently only available at Smashwords (see below).

"Midwinter Freedom" is a short story in my Mary Alwyn series.

This series takes place in one of my dream story worlds: in this case a world a little bit like Revolutionary America.  And as with all my dream stories, it isn't about history so much as about our popular culture views of history.

The main series is really a melodrama, (albeit a very anarchist melodrama, where the heroes are puritans and atheists and one feral woman trying to find her own way).

But this story is really just a simple little holiday romance.  I think it stands alone, but it's especially for those fans of Wife of Freedom:

Jackie and Mary have settled down again -- still wild and troublesome, but not suffering troubles at the moment.  It's winter, and time for warm fires and mulled flip, and gifts ... and gossip.

However, this time the gossip is about Jackie.  Jackie is a man who can't keep secrets, but apparently this time he has one.  So what's he been up to with that strange woman?

Midwinter Freedom is currently available only as an eBook and only from Smashwords.  But it's FREE.

UPDATE: this book is now free at most major vendors (at least in the U.S.):

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, 

Smashwords carries most formats, and also will distribute the book to most other ebook vendors, including Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Diesel and others.

It will be available at Amazon next week (though you can get a mobi file for you Kindle from Smashwords now).

I am delaying the upload to Amazon, because Amazon seems to have stopped matching the free price on books.  I am hoping that if the book is free everywhere when it is first uploaded there, Amazon may still match the price and  offer it free.  If not, the book will be 99 cents, and you can still get the book at Smashwords.

(Once again, here's the link:  Midwinter Freedom at Smashwords. )

UPDATE: this book is now free at most major vendors (at least in the U.S.):
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, 

See you in the funny papers.

Update, and 33 Years Ago Today

I may be coming down with a cold.  (A friend of mine has a bad cold right now.)

Or it may be just too freaking cold outside.

Or it may be the effects of biological change on women of a certain age.

But that short story I was hoping to have uploaded by now really hasn't even been edited yet. And the cover I did... I need to revise that too.  I think you'll enjoy it when I get all formatted and ready to read.  If that happens to be too late to get Amazon to treat it as a freebie for the holiday, I will have free versions on Smashwords and maybe a file on my website. (It's too long for a blog story -- about 5k.)

I'm thinking I'd kind of like to have a new holiday story every year.  I didn't get Six-Gun Santa sorted out in time, and I realize that I'd like to submit that to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine first, anyway.  If EQ doesn't take it, that will be next year's holiday story.


Thirty-Three Years Ago Today

It was a Monday night.  Everybody else in the house was asleep.  I was watching Johnny Carson, when a news crawl started across the bottom of the screen.  I didn't quite catch it.  Or maybe I just didn't quite believe what it said.  Somebody had been shot.   The name had scrolled out of sight, but ... did that say John Lennon?

This was in the days before cable and the 24-hour breaking news cycle.  Long before Twitter.

I flipped on the radio.

They were playing The Ballad of John and Yoko.

If I remember right, every station was playing it.  Twist the dial, and there it was again on the next station up.

And that said it all. It confirmed what happened, and also commented on it. The life (and likely/inevitable death) of a superstar in the modern world.

"Last night the wife said 'oh, boy when you're dead, you don't take nothing with you but your soul. Think!'"

So I am torn at the moment. I was going to embed a video of Imagine, a great atheist's message in the spirit of the holiday season.

But I think there is also a seasonally appropriate message underneath the anger in Ballad.  I mean, what is The Ballad of John and Yoko about? It's about the media circus surrounding their marriage and their decision to turn it into a message for Peace.  How, no matter how high your celebrity takes you, you still don't leave life with anything but your soul, so live with that in mind.

Since I can't make up my mind, I guess I'll give you both, and you can choose what you want to listen to.

The Ballad of John and Yoko (looks like fan edited video from the news events behind the song):



And a very nice version of Imagine (an HD version of the official music video):



See you in the funny papers.

Story Game: A Preview on Plotting

I lost the post I wrote about what I've learned messing around with the game this week. Maybe I'll post that next week.  In the meantime, here is an off-the-cuff post about plotting, which can serve as a teaser for what we'll be talking about here in January:


I'll let you in on a little secret:

The reason I started writing mysteries with a western twist wasn't because I used to watch that many westerns.  It was because I happened to be watching a particular western which was in reruns on TV Land, when I finally figured out how to plot a mystery.

The problem I'd had up to that point is that I tried to write mysteries the way I read them:  You just start telling this story and let all these mysterious clues mount up and.... uh, then you get stuck.

I was pondering Agatha Christie and couldn't quite figure out how she managed to turn the story upside down with a revelation, and then flip it around with another, and then send it spinning off into space at the end.  And I got the idea of the revelations. What I didn't get was how to handle the front story -- that is, how they worked together.

And what was playing on my TV in the background but... Maverick.  You know that old slightly silly western staring James Garner (and sometimes Jack Kelly and/or James Bond... I mean Roger Moore).  It pushed it's way into my consciousness, and I realized. OMG!  That holds all the answers!

You see Maverick had a kind of pattern to the plot -- at least the ones with James Garner.

Act 1: Maverick would ride into town with a purpose.  He'd be looking for an old friend who owed him money which he needed to get into a high-stakes poker game, or something like that.  And there would be stuff going on, but he didn't give a rip, because he was James Garner.  Eye rolling was sufficient reaction to even the worst disaster that might happen to somebody else.

But something would prevent him from doing what he wanted.  So he'd work out a deal with someone who could help him, and.... just before the ad break he'd discover that someone had lied to him, and he'd find himself with a handful of trouble instead of the money he was owed.

Ad Break.

Act 2: So, Maverick would change his course to suit what he now knew was the truth, and he'd go after his money/friend/whatever with renewed vigor.  He'd overcome some obstacles and usually ignore a few weird things going on (because he didn't care), but by golly, by the end of the second act, he'd find out he'd been told another lie. A bigger lie!  And he'd find he was in trouble.

Ad Break

Act 3:  Okay, now Maverick is pissed off.  He breaks some noses, cuts through some crap, and stomps his way to the truth, just in time to find out.... yep. There was yet another layer of lies, and now, all of a sudden, he was in really Deep Doo Doo.  I mean, no-water-in-the-desert-while-a-lynch-mob-hunts-you deep trouble.

Ad Break

Act 4: And now, knowing the truth, Maverick is able to put his disinterested but really quite agile brain to good use, and also really kick some ass of the people who pulled the wool over his eyes, and resolve both the mystery and his own problem.

What I've just described is a pretty standard pulp formula - only here played for laughs most of the time.  As a matter of fact, recently I was reading through Lester Dent's famous Master Plot for pulp short stories.

Dent's formula starts thusly: "...introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of trouble...the hero pitches in to cope with this fistful of trouble... near the end of the (first act) there is a complete surprise twist...."  Next act is to shovel more grief on the hero, he struggles, another surprising twist, and this happens again, until the hero "really gets it in the neck bad" and is buried in trouble... and he digs himself out.

I laughed when I first read this, because it is so much like the pattern I noticed in Maverick.   And for that matter the part about the twists at the end of every act is a lot like Christie.

But this isn't a mystery plot, it's an adventure plot -- specifically a men's pulp adventure plot.  Nothing to do with little old lady detectives and clues left among the daisies and lying butlers (well, except for the lying part.)


So how did this help me with mystery plotting?

It told me what the front story is.  It told me how you handle what's going on when you are hiding what's really going on.

The front story is that the protagonist thinks he knows what's going on, and he is acting on that.

It is not a case of the protagonist knowing nothing and then slowly and gradually gathering evidence until he knows everything.  No.

A mystery -- and any kind of story based on investigation (even historian stories) -- is about theories.  The character believes something, and he acts on his beliefs.  When obstacles are thrown in his path, he may dodge, but he doesn't actually change course until something big at the end of each act  proves to him that his basic theory is wrong.

Yes, sure, he's learning stuff all along between those big revelations, but everything he learns he fits into his existing theory.  He believes the pretty lady is in distress.  All the clues seem to be about who is menacing her. Then Maverick learns that the pretty lady actually isn't in distress at all, she's a thief.  Then all of a sudden, all the clues have a different meaning.  He moves into the second act with a whole different understanding of what's going on.

So now, when I sit down and try to figure out a plot, the question I ask myself is not "what's the truth behind these lies?" but "where is the protagonist going, and what will be the big thing that changes that direction?"

The Graceful Arc of the Story

In spite of what I learned from Maverick and Lester Dent, however, I really think that stories have a natural progression that is more than just "it gets worse" or "the protag changes direction."

I love the four-act plot structure.  I really think it follows a psychological pattern, where each act has a flavor all it's own. It progresses like a human progresses through the psychological stages of grief.

But that I will leave until January, when I'll start in on a series of posts and games related to plotting.  I don't know exactly how many posts -- probably an introduction, and a separate post about each of the four acts and their special character.  I don't know if I'm going to do separate posts for playing plotting games. We'll see when we get there.

In the meantime, I'll do a few sporatic posts during December, but we won't get back to anything major until January.

(Oh, and watch Sunday for a book announcement. I found a romantic little holiday short story in my files about Jackie and Mary Alwyn -- of The Wife of Freedom.  It's a lot of fun and I hope to have it polished and uploaded before the weekend is done.)

See you in the funny papers.

Update - Games and Sprints

I am actually writing a lot right now.

I'm writing so much I hurt myself. (Well, technically, it wasn't the writing that did it -- it was a combination of an old shoulder injury, freaky weather, not keeping up on exercise, AND writing too much.)

Therefore I don't really want to work on anything else right now -- in particular, not blogging.  So.. no posting this week other than today, and the Friday Story Game post.

What I've been doing:

Rolling Game Stories

Every day since I posted the previous Friday's game post (the "Let's Play" post), I've been rolling a story with the game.  I haven't gone further than minimal brainstorming on each one -- but I have gone far enough to tweak the game a little.  I will likely post this Friday on the things I've learned.

However, I'm also figuring out ways to adapt the game (or create a new game) for other genres and types of stories.  If I'm far enough along on one of those, I'll talk about that.

I have a nice stack of story ideas that intrigue me.  And I'm considering using these "situations" to brainstorm different kinds of stories. That is, I created this with the idea that they would be right for novellas or novels.  However, I'm wondering if they could be inspiration for short stories. Could I do even flash or micro-fiction riffing of these elaborate situations?

Furthermore.... could they inspire, say, a mystery story for Mick and Casey to solve?


#Writeclub's Friday Night Writes

The other thing I've been doing is writing sprints.  I've mentioned before how I sometimes work with a timer to keep me concentrated on what I'm doing. This may be anything from cleaning the bathroom to writing.

There are groups on Twitter who do something like this as a group activiity.  They announce a start time, and how long, and people join in.  They may or may not announce how many words they wrote during the session.

It's kind of like an instant writing dare.  The point is not really productivity, but concentration.

I usually do 15 minutes, but the Friday Night Writes group does 30 minutes on and 10 minutes off. (They go from like 2pm EST to 2am on Fridays -- look for the #writeclub hashtag.)

I decided on Monday I wanted to do some sprints, so I announced 20-on/10-off bouts.  Shorter works better for me.

And boy did it work better!  I usually, when working in longer increments, write about 700 words an hour.  With these, I was writing about 1100 an hour. I did about 2600 words in a three hour period with a 40 minute break in the middle (and ten minute breaks between bouts).

Part of this speed was do to the method, but part of it was because I was working on Game stories.

Unfortunately, the next day my shoulder gave out.  This was only partly due to the rapid typing.  (I normally type a lot every day.)

So even though I've learned a lot from this, and I'd like to tell you about it, I have to save my typing time.  I hope to tell you about it next week.

In the meantime, see you in the funny papers.